Alvin of Angelkeep raced from the woods toward the patio hitting the cement in front of my rocking chair precisely as I stomped my foot. It so frightened Chipmunk Alvin he head-butted an obstacle which in turn caused him to expel two largely nut-filled cheeks. Ross Bagdasarian could not have scripted the scene any more hilariously.
Who’s Ross? Stage named David Seville, he led the trio of singing chipmunks that began in 1958. About Thanksgiving time, a song hit the radio. I loved it at age 10. It’s been played every year, long after the 45s (over 1 million of them) became obsolete. Alvin, Simon and Theodore, singing, “Hurry Christmas, don’t be late,” and well before the Thanksgiving turkey had been plucked.
Did you know the chipmunk triplets were named after Liberty Records’ President Alvin, Founder Simon, and Chief Engineer Theodore? How many remember David Seville’s earlier recording “Witch Doctor”? “Ooo eee, ooo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla, bing bang.” “Witch Doctor” lost the 1959 Grammy Award to, guess what, “Christmas Don’t Be Late.”
Angelkeep Alvin and the boys destroyed the first picking of the tomato crop once again. They don’t like eating green tomatoes just beginning to turn red, but they don’t remember that, and bite into them, leaving them on the vine or ground with a chunk missing. Angelkeep’s tomato crop must be ripened on an inside kitchen window ledge if any are to be on my BLT.
“Alvin, stop that, or are you Brittany?”
Brittany, Jeanettte, and Eleanor, were female singing chipmunks appearing in “The Chipmunks” in 1988, when Alvin’s name was dropped and the female singing trio appeared as the Chipettes. Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.’s daughter-in-law, Janice Karman, wife of Ross Jr., voiced and wrote the Chipettes’ dialogue. Sassy Brittany had a love/hate relationship with Alvin. They fell in love in “The Squeakquel.”
Surely the antics of male and female were demonstrated when observed at Angelkeep in autumn as Angelkeep’s Alvin and Brittany did what chipmunks do. They gathered up fallen sunflower seeds, filling cheeks to gregarious proportions, and raced to burrows to pantry away the harvest.
During the collecting time they rivaled over territory. One chased the other, scamper, stop and collect, scamper, stop…continuously for hours. When one charged the other, a familiar avoidance measure meant a leap, a leap-frog forward, eliminated any explosive cheek to cheek collision. That would have caused a colossal eruption of sunflower seeds spewing from the cheeks of the pair.
Surely anytime soon, at least by next week’s appearance of Thanksgiving, Alvin and the Chipmunks will begin airing their original tune once again. Alvin will again cry out in the midst of the tune, “Me I want a hula hoop.” There’s likely an iPhone app for that.
Thanksgiving at Angelkeep has an annual tradition of supplying an extra-large supply of corn kernels to the ground on the far side of Angelpond. It supplements deer beginning to find difficulty in locating edible vegetation. Angelkeep Alvin, and all the rest, whatever their names are, seem to hold the belief the corn is placed for them. Even though their burrows are just a few feet from Angelkeep’s rear patio, they run helter-skelter for Angelpond’s southern shore collecting kernels. Perhaps they like to balance their sunflower seed winter consumption with corn. Nuts and grain make for a nutritional diet for Alvin and family.
Alvin and the rest truly gather at Thanksgiving time. After all, without a doubt, they are all brothers and sisters, or at least cousins, and like most Thanksgiving families have their times of fun, frolicking, dining together, combined with bits of conflict. And let’s not forget the extreme Thanksgiving overindulgence. “Anybody want this last black walnut?,” Angelkeep Alvin shouts. Although numerous chipmunks retort with “Me,” “No, me,” “I do,” “Mine,” etc., to Alvin it was rhetorical as he already had the walnut in cheek and raced for his hole.
“Christmas, Christmas time is near, time for joy and time for cheer …” Wait, stop the music. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
“We’ve been good but we can’t last … ooo eee, ooo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla, bing bang.”
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
